Italian Christmas Cookies

The first real cold snap. Thirty-eight degrees on Monday morning, frost on the garden, the windshield scraped for the first time since March. The cold frame survived — Jack's lettuce is still green under the glass, a small defiance against the season, and Jack stood over it Tuesday morning with the satisfaction of an engineer whose structure has passed its first test. The rest of the garden is done. The corn stalks are brown skeletons. The tomato cages stand empty. The watermelon mound is a bare hill. The garden has entered its winter sleep, and I have entered mine — the sleep that isn't really sleep but the shift from growing to preserving, from the garden to the kitchen, from the sun to the oven.

I made pumpkin soup — roasted sugar pumpkins from the farmers' market, scooped and pureed, simmered with onion and garlic and chicken broth and a splash of cream and a pinch of nutmeg. The soup was orange and velvet and tasted like October reduced to a liquid. I served it with crusty bread and butter and the kids ate it without complaint, which is a minor miracle because pumpkin soup is not a child-friendly dish by any metric except the one where your mother makes it and you eat it because she made it and that's the end of the discussion.

Noah's band is preparing for the fall concert — a different concert than the jazz band, this is the full middle school concert band, with clarinets and flutes and a tuba that sounds like a foghorn in a hallway. Noah's practicing at home, which means the house is full of Gershwin and Duke Ellington and the occasional screech that means he hit a wrong note, followed by silence, followed by the passage again, correctly this time. The discipline of it. The repetition. The willingness to fail and try again and fail and try again until the music comes out right. He's learning something that has nothing to do with saxophone and everything to do with who he'll become: a person who practices. A person who gets it wrong and doesn't stop.

I started my Christmas cookie planning. It's October, which means it's time. The list: Marlene's chocolate chip (browned butter, obviously), snickerdoodles, sugar cookies (cutouts, frosted), peanut butter blossoms, Russian tea cakes, and a new addition this year — cranberry pistachio biscotti, because I tried it at a bakery in Ames and thought, "I can do this," which is how my cookie list grows, one inspiration at a time. The list lives on a notepad on the refrigerator. It has been revised three times. It will be revised four more. The cookie list is a living document. It evolves with me.

Writing that cookie list on the refrigerator notepad — revising it, arguing with myself about it, adding the biscotti I tasted in Ames — reminded me that the best cookies on any list are the ones that have earned their place through repetition, through the ritual of making them year after year until your hands know the dough before your mind does. Italian Christmas cookies are exactly that kind of recipe for me: soft, glazed, almost deceptively simple, and completely non-negotiable. If you’re starting your own list this October, start here.

Prep Time: 25 min | Cook Time: 12 min | Total Time: 37 min | Servings: 48 cookies

Ingredients

3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, softened
1 cup granulated sugar
3 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon almond extract
1/2 cup whole milk
For the glaze:
2 cups powdered sugar, sifted
3–4 tablespoons milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
Assorted sprinkles or nonpareils, for decorating

Instructions

Preheat oven. Heat oven to 350°F. Line two baking sheets with parchment paper and set aside.
Mix dry ingredients. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
Cream butter and sugar. In a large bowl, beat softened butter and granulated sugar together with a hand mixer on medium speed until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.
Add eggs and extracts. Beat in eggs one at a time, then add vanilla and almond extracts. Mix until fully combined.
Combine wet and dry. Reduce mixer speed to low and add the flour mixture in three additions, alternating with the milk, beginning and ending with flour. Mix just until a soft dough forms — do not overwork it.
Shape cookies. Roll dough into 1-inch balls and place about 2 inches apart on prepared baking sheets. Slightly flatten each ball with the palm of your hand.
Bake. Bake for 10–12 minutes, until bottoms are just lightly golden and tops are set but still pale. Do not overbake — these should stay soft. Transfer to a wire rack and cool completely before glazing.
Make the glaze. Whisk together powdered sugar, 3 tablespoons milk, and vanilla in a small bowl until smooth. Add the remaining tablespoon of milk if needed to reach a thin, pourable consistency.
Glaze and decorate. Dip the top of each cooled cookie into the glaze, letting the excess drip back into the bowl. Return to the wire rack and immediately top with sprinkles or nonpareils before the glaze sets. Allow glaze to harden fully, about 20 minutes, before storing.

Nutrition (per serving)

Italian Christmas Cookies — The Cookie List Begins in October